Sabah has most of Malaysia’s street kids who pose more than just social problems

By Elizabeth Majaham

Their number is frightening. Most of Malaysia’s half a million street children are in Sabah, touting pedestrians and motorists with their wares of cigarettes and vegetables or their services as shoeshine boys. They rummage rubbish bins for food, toys and clothes. Some become child prostitutes. Almost all of them are stateless. But with 610,000 foreigners, mostly illegal migrant workers, in the state, the authorities should be worried. This means that a large number of street kids are Sabahans, not foreigners, who have become stateless.

Nobody knows how many of these Sabahan children have become stateless because of a twist of fate. Nevertheless, the public is disgusted with them. The local media have little empathy for street kids, regarding them as a nuisance to society. Thus the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) organised a media workshop in Kota Kinabalu in early October aimed at helping 23 Sabah journalists to understand the plight of stateless children who live off the streets.

Guy Thompstone, director of Child Frontiers, a consultancy working with Unicef, says the media can help society and the government shape policies to deal with the problems of these children. He says every child has rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which celebrates its 20th year.

Yet Malaysia, which ratified the treaty in 1995, has refused birth certificates to 50,000 children of foreigners in Sabah, according to home minister Hishamuddin Hussein. He says his government refuses jus soli of the CRC, a legal principle which says that a person’s nationality at birth is determined by the territory within which he was born.

Ironically, Malaysia has just launched a set of “Caring Society” postage stamps to commemorate the CRC’s anniversary.

Nevertheless, there is little logic for the government not to issue birth certificates to children of foreigners born in Malaysia since the country’s laws do not confer citizenship on birth rights. Malaysian laws say that either one of the child’s parents must be a permanent resident or citizen before he can be given citizenship even though he is born in Malaysia.

“A child who is not given birth registration and an identity, which does not necessarily give him a right to citizenship, is fundamentally denied of his rights,” Mr Thompstone says. “When children do not have access to education, health care, leisure and participation in mainstream activities, they will turn to crime and violence.”

And this has been the greatest scourge for Sabah as young children without identity papers turn to the streets for survival because schools will not take them. And they could be Sabahans.

The government’s reluctance to issue such papers to these children is understandable. It fears that citizenship may go to the wrong people. So, Richard Malanjum, the chief judge of Sabah and Sarawak, has ordered his mobile courts to require DNA proof of doubtful applicants for late birth registration to show that they are children of Malaysians. Malaysian laws say parents must register their children within 42 days of birth. If not, the national registration department would give them a “conditional birth certificate”.

“This verifies that the child is born in Malaysia but he is not entitled to a Malaysian identity card which accords him citizenship,” Ismail Brahim, a sessions court judge, told the workshop. So, that could be one reason why Sabahan children become stateless.

However, since 2007, the mobile courts have solved 2,200 such cases, according to Mr Ismail.

There are 64 stateless children who are under 18 years in the care of the Federal Special Task Force. At Rumah Merah (red house) in Menggatal about 20 kilometres from Kota Kinabalu city, they are taught how to read, write and count. But they will have to leave the shelter when they are 18. Nobody knows what will happen to these stateless children after then.

Misri Barham, the task force director, says the welfare department will help to get birth certificates for those who are found to be children of Malaysians. If so, the welfare department will send them to school and vocational training. “By the time they leave the shelter, they would have an education and skills that will allow them to further their study or find a job,” says welfare director Itong Terang.

Rumah Merah is only temporary. A bigger centre, Rumah Ehsan (excellence), costing 5m ringgit ($1.5m) will be ready year end to take 80 stateless children. – Insight Sabah